


Shiny

by 12drakon



Series: Shiny [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Hacking, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Math Kink, Multiple Crossovers, Nightmare Fuel, Spies & Secret Agents, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-20 18:59:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4798766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/12drakon/pseuds/12drakon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Puzzle games can remedy post-trauma, but they won’t erase the terrible necessities of war. When the Autobots and Decepticons don’t dream of freedom and power, they dream of little ponies and pocket monsters, forests and crystals, games and magic. They secure their electric dreams from the war, but firewalls can be broken.</p><p>When Jazz tortures Laserbeak, the war goes where it has never gone before.</p><p>This story happens entirely within VRs, and avatars come in part from My Little Pony and Pokemon shows. Isn't it sad when you are the only fan of a show in your whole faction?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hide and Seek](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4741346) by [dragonofdispair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair). 



> Big thanks to dragonofdispair for beta reading and advice.
> 
> The VR concept is from the Jazz x Prowl livejournal community: “In this world, recharging involves plugging yourself into the main computer system for proper defragmentation. While your processor gets recharged, your consciousness is put into a virtual reality world created by the main computer system. Cybertronians can interact with others plugged into the system or choose not to interact. This system is controlled by artificial intelligence and reacts according to each mech’s needs/wishes/desires.”
> 
> Time units ([click for more on Cybertronian time](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4865111)): nanoklik is a brief moment, klik is about a minute, joor is about an hour.  
> 

Laserbeak flattened all the ailerons on her red wings, engaged her jet overdrive, and dove down, down toward the endless sparkling fractal plane. Down was where the Heart was. Her favorite thrill came from precise maneuvers at high speed. She aimed for a square hole twice as small as her head. At a signal she timed just so, the golden crystal zoomed out in a cascade of brilliant reflections edged in coruscating blue lights.

Energon-blue: a monster warning.

The crystal tunnel Laserbeak entered was wide enough for her to fly, bright enough to soothe her nostalgia for Cybertron’s forests of resonating crystals, but narrow enough to challenge and train her for surveillance missions. That’s why her current tunnel wasn’t randomly generated: it resembled the map of the Ark’s air vents.

VR’s reminder of the Autobot ship made her tremble mid-flight as if her engine stalled. Laserbeak sternly told herself she was home, safe, not in pain. VRs never had haptic feedback for their collision mechanics, because it would disrupt recharge. If Laserbeak flew into a wall, or a monster’s claws pierced her, she’d just hear a bell and see pretty cascading lights, maybe portals to restart or to exit. Here, a mistake would not land her in the brig, where Jazz…

She had no time to dwell on that memory, because the walls suddenly shifted and branched. In the three nanokliks she had to avoid collision, Laserbeak recomputed her route, picked the optimal path, and performed an elegant stall turn maneuver to follow it. Exciting! This puzzle would not let her processor stall in vicious cycles replaying her captivity: an excellent debug for post-trauma glitches.

Now down was right, the Heart nearer by a level, and the walls pulsing the brightest blue. Very close! After her next swerve and zoom (now down was up) Laserbeak saw the ugly monster, all claws and horns, in plain black and white that had no place in this world of complex warm crystal light. She fired both under-wing rockets and overclocked her blasters. Thank Primus for VR’s infinite ammo; this was fun! The monster that would grab her and hurt her exploded in pretty cascading lights, and dropped a crystal Laserbeak caught without slowing down. Shiny.

She spent the rest of her defragmentation in the fractal labyrinth, collecting treasure, exploding black-white monsters into festive fireworks, and getting closer to the Heart. At the last level, Laserbeak chose a square hole no bigger than her claw tip, aimed and zoomed perfectly, and entered the chamber beyond. It shone pure gold, all blue warnings gone, all monsters dead. Top score today, Laserbeak thought smugly.

The chamber's walls were made of the sparkling fractal plane, turned inside out through the fourth dimension. Down was down, the puzzle all solved, and there on a pedestal stood the last crystal, her prize. Most of the time, the VR coded the prize with files from Laserbeak’s media subscriptions, like Cybertron flyby logs from the seeker patrols, or human animated shows. But tonight, the crystal bore Soundwave’s glyph. This prize was hand-coded.

At Laserbeak’s peck the crystal transformed in a slow complex sequence that kept her mesmerized. The crystal’s alt form was a Golden Age greeting card in a precious alloy, traditionally creased into enough pentagons for the recipient and all who signed. In the privacy of their VR firewalled from the harsh Decepticon culture, Soundwave and his cassettes had the luxury to show they cared.

The top pentagon of the card was engraved with _Get Well Soon_ glyphs and held a white creature flying circles in a short animated loop. Another glyph signaled an available download. Here in the Heart, her training-play all done, Laserbeak was free to switch from her root form to another avatar.

She pecked at the animation, accepted the download, and switched avatars. She stretched, testing her new alien body. The character was designated as magic by humans, and had one horn, two feathered wings, and four hoofed limbs to show it, unlike any real Earth creature. “It” - the magic - was Laserbeak’s favorite part in human fairy stories and myths, so different from Cybertronian speculative fiction.

Soundwave encouraged Laserbeak’s interest, because the team could use her knowledge in psychological warfare. But neither he nor other cassettes liked this character, Princess Celestia, or that animated series about magic ponies. Sometimes Laserbeak would watch an episode in the company of the Autobots, hidden in an air vent of course, and listen to them chat. It must feel nice to talk about your show.

Still, her team had made a good effort with this avatar, for her sake. Laserbeak put her walking limb nearer to her face, examining. It had an ornate golden ending matching the sun-brand on her side. Unlike the Decepticons and Autobots, each pony had its own brand. The limb had no prehensile parts: magic instead of fingers. Laserbeak folded one wing to the front, enjoying the rich details, each feather perfectly groomed, also by magic, since the character had no beak for the task. Long strands of her mane and tail reflected light like magenta and blue fiberglass… no, like a cape crafted from a space bridge portal, she decided, like the teleportation cape Necrobot was rumored to use for his quantum travels.

Laserbeak flew around the Heart, turning to make her mane and tail flow and swirl. This avatar was a keeper. Somebody, probably Rumble and Frenzy, must have hacked into the human studio for the original Princess Celestia files, because every motion felt very true to the show. Ah, to be your favorite character!

Laserbeak landed with a whoosh of wings and a melodious jingle of hoofs on the crystal, loving the avatar a bit more for its audio coding. She read the rest of the card. Under the top inscription _Get Well Soon_ , the twins shared a pentagon where their scribble clarified, “Get out of the medbay and help us hack, you slacker.” Ravage’s message was as pragmatic as the cat-former himself: it said that on the medberth under Laserbeak’s wing, waiting for her to wake up, was her favorite crispy treat enhanced with metals to help her self-repairs. Ratbat just wrote “Get well.” Buzzsaw also just wrote “Get well,” but below was a different message, in Soundwave’s angular glyphs: “Get even.”

Soundwave’s message came with another download. Unlike the pony avatar, this data package was triple-encrypted and encased in a safety shell their team used for military grade malware.

Shiny.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crossovers are with My Little Pony and Pokemon.  
> "Friendship is magic and slag."

Jazz perched on the highest roof as an owl, his favorite avatar. Almost everyone else tried new bodies this night. That’s because Sunstreaker had finally agreed to put his artistic talents to use in their VR. Their dream world was already transforming under master’s touch, from the rich watercolor forest to vibrant characters.

Jazz preened another feather, anxious. Their VR would be a gorgeous piece of art, but it might glitch if Sunny messed up, even though Wheeljack was monitoring their mainframe. Worse, now Jazz had to learn who is who all over again. What if he had to find someone in a hurry? He could hack into Teletraan for the purpose, he figured… And break the privacy of the other Autobots? They couldn’t have rested well if they learned someone was messing with their VR uplinks. Jazz sure couldn’t have. Your dreams were yours, even if you chose to spend them in a shared space.

No, there were lines even he wouldn’t cross, Jazz thought bitterly. All the questionable slag he’d done as a saboteur had been dragging him down for the last two weeks, after his new low: torturing a prisoner. And not for urgent intel to save lives, but to prove to the ‘Cons that he could enact threats from a failed negotiation, that he wasn’t a “bluffing, soft-sparked moron” as Megatron put it.

Jazz understood the long-term needs, and his actions were approved by every officer. He’d tried to tell himself active pain wasn’t that different from their past interrogation techniques, like holding a claustrophobic seeker in a tiny cell. Optimus Prime gravely explained what Jazz already knew, about lives and pain saved in future negotiations. Even the little birdie prisoner understood he had to do it; her carrier said he saw the necessity; and yet, and yet. Jazz proved he wasn’t bluffing, or soft-sparked, and yet he felt miserably moronic.

The tactic was solid, the strategy right, and the Autobot code intact. But what Jazz had done, and now by extension other things he had been doing, kept feeling utterly stupid. He didn’t know why.

He ruffled all his feathers, as if to shake off the wrongness. There were new VR settings to log, new avatars to memorize, new puzzles to solve. He flew around, faking his easy-going “party Jazz” mood, fishing for clues as only an experienced interrogator could. Chatting with a dragon here, racing a herd of ponies there, joking with a couple of… oh for frag’s sake, what were these supposed to be? Did Sunny have to go that avant-garde on avatars?

After a joor of gathering intel, Jazz was back on his roof. No sooner he thought, “At least there are no glitches” than the world shook all over and blinked to transparent. When it reset, every tree in the forest, every pony, Jazz’s roof, and Jazz was edged with golden glow. He saw the Autobots applaud. Yes, the effect was pretty, but he wished Sunstreaker wouldn’t reset their VR with so many ‘Bots in it.

There Sunny was, in his old avatar, the pony with the sun on its aft, closely examining a bush, then galloping away. Jazz was about to chase the careless artist around the corner to give him a piece of his mind, when another Princess Celestia pranced through the square. Scrap! A cross-avatar glitch could crash the whole VR. Jazz had to…

He was distracted when a blimp shaped as cat’s head glided from behind and hovered over his roof. Jazz knew its origin, of course: he kept up with media for hints about those who consumed it. Prowl said it was just his excuse to watch silly human shows.

A cartoon girl with red hair (real red, not that orange humans called “red”) jumped out of the blimp and yelled, “Prepare for trouble!”

A boy with blue hair followed, contorted into a dramatic pose, and cried, “Make it double!”

The girl added, “Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light.”

And the boy continued, winking at Jazz, “Surrender now, or prepare to fight!”

Cute, Jazz thought, clicking his beak in owl’s equivalent of cheers, but saying nothing in case they weren’t done playing. They, who? Young Protectobots?

A cartoon cat, its head a smaller copy of the blimp, disembarked in a dignified manner. The girl and the boy looked at the cat expectantly, then the boy scowled, “Come on, say it!”

The cat growled at them and muttered: “Meowth.” Then turned to Jazz and said, voice three octaves too low for this character: “Freeze, you slagger.”

Jazz did an owl double-take, turning his head all around. The cat strode closer to him, and then looked down as if something in the square below caught its attention. When Jazz looked down there too, the cat touched him with one claw, and he froze, literally froze. He turned to ask the humans what was going on, or rather tried to turn and failed. His head and neck felt solid, as if his avatar was carved from ice. Wings, claws - nothing moved. The cat seemed frozen too.

“What’s goin’ on?” Jazz asked irritably. His voice came out very quiet. He tried several motion overrides and they didn’t work. You could program motion-altering collisions in this VR, and some ‘Bots used the mechanic in their sports or kinky pretend-play, but it was not okay to surprise mechs like that. Sudden loss of control over one's avatar felt too jarring. Jazz said, “Stop this!”

Humans just giggled and the cat growled, also quietly: “Rumble, Frenzy, hurry up. Get in the shell. She’s about to begin.”

Jazz felt as if his spark froze along with his avatar. This had never happened, was never supposed to happen. The cross-faction treaty against hacking VRs had never been violated. Both factions could always recharge in peace: the only peace they had had amidst the endless war.

Autobots had never hurt prisoners before, either.

Jazz had spent the last two weeks trying and failing to come to terms with the world where he did such things. Now he had to face the future where the real war broke into your dreams. Maybe he could erase that future yet, make this intrusion a one-time nightmare, locked away in the shadowy world of saboteurs and surveillance mechs. If Soundwave’s team came here for Jazz because the head of spec ops was notoriously hard to catch, maybe he could offer an exchange. A patch for this hack plus Soundwave’s promise not to research VR hacks again, in exchange for Autobot Jazz in physical space. Maybe, Jazz thought grimly, whatever they did to him would make his guilt go away.

It was obvious who the cat was. Trying to sound calm, Jazz addressed the mech, who was the most reasonable of the three: “Ravage, this is goin’ too far. We need to find another way. Can we…” Ravage interrupted: “We can’t. It’s too late to stop. Soundwave will explain. Shut up and watch.” 

Frantic, Jazz sent the command to abort his recharge and it bounced back with, “Access denied.” He tried to yell, “Autobots, alarm! We have intruders!” But his voice came out as quiet as before, and there was no response other than twin giggles. Jazz fell silent, waiting to find out what it was that “she” (he knew who) was about to begin, and trying various commands to free himself.

The twins sat down on either side of Jazz, as if to watch an outdoor movie. “To unite all peoples within our nation,” the red-haired girl quoted her show in mock-solemn tone. “Frenz, what are you, Megatron?” asked the boy. Each poked Jazz with one finger, and both froze as well, the golden shine around them turning off, he now noticed, just like it was off around himself and the cat.

That second Princess Celestia flew up to their roof. This close Jazz saw the subtle differences with Sunstreaker’s avatar - longer mane and tail, more sparkle all over, complex whoosh of beating wings as she hovered… Her eyes fixed on him with an unreadable hard stare, then moved over her team, as if carefully checking.

Jazz didn’t know what to expect next. He felt helpless and exposed because their VR had been hacked, and implications for the future terrified him, but all in all, the ‘Cons couldn’t exactly hurt him in here. Were they planning to give him a stern lecture, show him something disturbing, or keep him stranded until the daily reset? None of that was nearly harsh enough to make sense as retaliation. “Laserbeak?” Jazz began. His voice would be quiet even without the override. The not-so-little pony, much taller than the four other avatars on the roof, only nodded and flew away.

His gaze as well as his thoughts following her, Jazz wondered how it must feel for the bird-former to be the smallest mech among the Decepticons, who used brute force on one another all the time. Maybe he should find out. Could she talk in here? Jazz knew from their many spy vs. spy encounters that Laserbeak was very smart, but in the physical world, her only sounds were bird-like trills and whistles. And shrieks, Jazz recalled reluctantly.

By now, Laserbeak was a tiny white dot at the very edge of VR, where mechs rarely went. There, it felt like being stuck in goo, the program nudging you to turn around. Laserbeak hovered for a few nanokliks, then did turn around and slowly flew across the sky.

A wave of change followed her. Each tree, rock, and building flickered into its constituent polygons, then rearranged itself into - what? Some sort of glassy crystal formation in gold, still resembling the original object, but clean, symmetric, and patterned. The effect would have been beautiful if Jazz didn’t suddenly connect it to Megatron forcibly cyberforming organic worlds.

Jazz zoomed in closer, focusing on the woods where the wave was now rolling. His sensory controls were intact. As in real cyberforming, squirrels, birds, and other creatures of the forest didn’t survive the silent golden wave, disappearing. The wave was about to overtake a realistic fox and wolf sedately walking and talking, oblivious to the changes behind them. Jazz already knew them for Red Alert and Inferno, and felt afraid. Would they freeze like him, or turn into gold crystals like trees, or boot off the VR like squirrels - or something worse?

The couple transformed when the wave touched them, and for a few nanokliks Jazz felt relieved. He saw no nameless horrors, just new avatars that looked like toys humans made in the likeness of Cybertronians. They stopped to check out their new bodies and the changed world. Their gestures were clumsy and limited by toy frames, but they looked more amused than alarmed. Inferno pulled a toy blaster out of its holster and fired at a crystal, which absorbed the realistic energy beam with soft golden glow. He put the weapon away, shrugged, and the two resumed their walk. A patch of energon-blue spotlight followed them through the crystal forest.

The ‘Cons had timed their hack perfectly, no doubt from the intel they had gathered. For a while, every ‘Bot would think everything was a part of Sunstreaker’s special plan.

A realization hit and Jazz groaned. Laserbeak wasn’t just changing the avatars in some generic algorithm. Her malware knew Red Alert and Inferno for who they were, had that level of access not just to Jazz, but to everyone’s VR uplink. She was doing something to all the Autobots, something that wasn’t yet over.

“Fascinating!” Jazz said lightly, hoping his guards missed his groan. He had to try learning more, in case he could do something. “I didn’t know ya tough ‘Cons were into kiddie toys.” Ravage ignored this feeble provocation, but the chatty Rumble and Frenzy did prefer to taunt Jazz with words rather than silent apprehension:  
\- Laserbeak programmed that part. Because you are just toys for us, duh.  
\- Yeah, it’s a part of our awesome virus.  
\- Laserbeak calls it antimidas and laughs about the name but would not tell us why.  
\- Eh, she’ll tell us soon. She’s been in a mood.  
\- Playing her puzzles all day, but they don’t quite help.

For a moment, Jazz was glad to be frozen, so they could not see him wince. He didn’t say anything, because the twins were still talking at him, quietly and gleefully:  
\- She’ll feel better after this. Ooh, you’ll see, Jazz, you’ll see.  
\- Except for what you won’t see.  
\- Ha, yes, on the outside. Buzzsaw and Ratbat will record for us.  
\- They already took care of your dork-on-duty and we won’t be interrupted.  
\- Outside, mmm, that’s the best part.  
\- Or the worst. For you Autoscrap.  
\- You’ll never recharge well again!

Ravage growled, “No spoilers. You two, shut up. It’s Laserbeak’s game. Let her explain.”

Jazz wanted to break his dread by curses or threats, to point out that after this, nobody would recharge well again, least of all Soundwave’s team. But it seemed futile, and he stayed silent, alone with his dark thoughts. He very much doubted Laserbeak would feel better. They were caught for good in their war, everything was growing worse, and nothing he could say or do would change that. Jazz had been trying various commands to make himself unfreeze or wake up, but now he stopped these struggles as well. With eerie detachment, he saw his roof turn into crystal, saw the wave of golden shine roll past, saw those of his friends who were out in the open turn into toys.

Laserbeak reached the other end of VR, becoming a tiny dot again, and Jazz saw the dot change its color to red. She flew back to their roof, so fast in her base form no ‘Bot below seemed to notice her, not a toy, but the real mech. The avatar of the real mech, Jazz reminded himself.

Laserbeak perched on the roof and pulled a crystal out of her subspace. She touched it with her beak, and it transformed into a flat screen facing the frozen group. The screen displayed Soundwave’s name and the glyph for an upcoming connection.

“Laserbeak…” Jazz managed. It was hard to talk to her after what he had done. “Do ya know what this means? Autobots will have to respond, we can’t leave this be, we’ll hack the Nemesis mainframe next! I don’t mean to threaten, but we just won’t have a choice.” He wished he could convince her, let her see the future he saw, or at least show his exasperation and spread his hands. Wings.

Yes, the bird-former avatar could talk. Her voice reminded Jazz of human synth-xylophones. “You’ve built Ponyville in here. We could have…” She trailed off.

She sounded sad, Jazz thought, or maybe he was projecting. Was she thinking what Jazz was thinking - slag the war, we could have played together? Or was she thinking about all the ways her team could have hurt their enemies if they knew the exact content of their dreams? Soundwave appeared on the screen, nodding his greeting. Jazz couldn’t nod and was at a loss for words.

When Laserbeak spoke again, her voice was monotone and her words coldly technical, almost Soundwave-style: “Here is what will happen. When I activate stage two of the virus, the whole virtual reality will shift to the game mode. The collision feedback will go to the real frames of the mechs currently inside the VR, except for you four in the shell. We hacked the feedback through the overload protocols. There is a back door from the VR uplink that one can exploit. We chose these protocols because you can trigger overloads purely by data input from a dream.”

Rumble added, “And because it’s too slagging funny!”

Absurd. They weren’t discussing this grotesque newspark horror story about VRs reaching out and doing nasty things to your frame. Through your overload systems, of all things! Jazz whispered, “No” - except it wasn’t a whisper. Whatever voice override came with the avatar-freezing shell made all his sounds the same volume, quiet but heard by all on the roof.

“Yes,” replied Rumble mockingly, and Frenzy added, “It won’t be a nice overload either, and the ‘Bots won’t just blow a couple of fuses!”

Ravage growled again, and the twins fell quiet. Laserbeak continued: “We tuned the effect. It’s amplified, but nobody should die. Just some fried circuits, torn cables… Nothing a day or two in the medbay and a week or two of self-repair won’t fix.” Jazz couldn’t tell if that last phrase was vindictive and ironic, or sad and sympathetic. Maybe everything at once. “I will be flying around shooting, and I don’t want to die if I collide. But I won’t collide!” Now her tone was plain smug.

“Laserbeak, please!” Jazz asked, or begged, he didn’t care. “Soundwave, come on. Ravage, ya smart too.” The twins chorused indignant, “Hey!” but the saboteur ignored them. “Think, mechs, use those processors. Ya want to hurt me, fine, here I am, ya got me. We can meet up, I’ll come alone and unarmed, let’s just take this outside! This - this is messed up. Autobots will figure out ya hack, and then what? How soon will we all turn into Pit-spawned glitches if we recharge without our VRs? Just… just stop!”

Laserbeak’s wings drooped, but she shook her head and flew away with a sad and angry bird-shriek. “Negative,” Soundwave said from his screen, voice level. “Megatron: bluffed with Laserbeak. Soundwave: must respond. Decepticons: must see Soundwave’s strength. Response: must be disproportional.” His visor turned dark, as if he tried to block out what he saw, and his voice was barely a whisper, the opposite of triumphant, “Projected escalation: severe to terminal. Decepticons: projected superior.” He ex-vented, and finished as levelly as he started, “Hack: almost ready when Laserbeak hurt. Soundwave: must use hack.”

Must, must, must. Tactics and strategy checked out, but there Jazz was again, feeling everything was wrong and stupid. Not because Soundwave was mistaken about the ‘Cons winning (though he was of course), but because he was right about severe escalation. This wasn’t even about hurting him back, or hurting the ‘Bots; it was about ‘Con politics. This wasn’t something Soundwave wanted to do; he felt forced. Jazz wondered if Megatron felt forced too.

The Autobots fought for freedom and the Decepticons for power. Here they were, robbed of either: computer-ran monsters in the game of war.

Down below, Jazz saw a group of the Autobots surrounding Sunstreaker, crystals around them lighted blue. Sunny was shaking his head “No” and gesturing as wildly as his toy avatar could. “At least let me be with my ‘Bots,” Jazz asked, without much hope.

“Negative,” replied Soundwave curtly.

The twins hurried to add: “No overload for you tonight, fragger!” and “You made Soundwave watch what you did to Beaky - now you can watch your friends burn. Friendship is magic and slag.”

Oh. This part was about hurting him, after all. And Jazz had thought that Soundwave’s retaliation could make him feel less guilty…

Technically, Soundwave had had the choice to close the comm. back then, and Jazz could disable his senses now. But he felt, like Soundwave must have felt, that he owed it to the ‘Bots to witness and endure.

Laserbeak hovered mid-sky. She must have sent the command for stage two, because the world turned inside-out. Jazz’s roof was now in the middle of a many-sided golden polyhedron dotted with a myriad pinholes. The ‘Cons probably had no time to program fine controls into the hack, and so Team Rocket stayed frozen with Jazz in their protective shell, the twins no doubt looking forward to commenting the game for him. Soundwave was gone from the screen, replaced with a view of a shiny crystal plane with square holes. The view was overlaid with what Jazz recognized as tactical displays for flight. Optimus Prime stood alone on the plane, toy cannon in hand aiming at the camera, his avatar overlaid with an aiming sight. This had to be Laserbeak’s visual feed.

For a few nanokliks nothing was happening, and Jazz had a silly hope it would all disappear like a bad dream, someone on the outside would reset their VR, and he would wake up - they would all wake up. Instead, the game began. The world on the screen tilted, two rockets sped across it converging on Optimus, and plasma bolts lit up the screen as the crystal plane rushed at Jazz in a crazy spin of an evasive maneuver, up and down switching places every moment. Laserbeak would crash!

But she flew right through bright fireworks and a floating crystal that used to be Jazz’s leader. Who was now waking up in his berth, hurt and bewildered but alive, Jazz hoped (trying not to imagine the overload part, to respect Prime’s dignity) - or maybe Optimus was in stasis, or maybe… Laserbeak dove into an impossibly small hole. Jazz gasped, but everything zoomed out at the last moment so she could fit. The walls were pulsing blue.

“Ooh, someone else is close,” Frenzy said, and Rumble added: “Gotta catch ‘em all!” Jazz and Ravage groaned.

Laserbeak swerved to follow the tricky angles of the crystal. Jazz’s instincts kicked in, his attention caught by the game. His puzzle-loving mind automatically thought safer and faster routes through the labyrinth, as if he were the one playing. Jazz had no choice in that, as much as he wanted Laserbeak to crash and burn before she reached the next monster... enemy… friend.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to credit Peacewish story "These Games We Play" for elements of Laserbeak character: love of crunchy treats, magic stories, and everything shiny. And Soudwave folding metal. http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/1174.html?thread=1327254#t1327254


End file.
